Any fish keepers on here?

[Sabine]

I've had afew gold fish for the last two years and apart from the odd casualty they have been doing rather well. A few weeks ago we bought two new fish from a shop who brought in a desease and within a week or so all my fish dies from something like a fungal infection. As we are moving house in a few weeks I am not planning to res stock the aquarium for a while but wait until we are settled. My question is: What's the best way to clean out the tank. A lot of the ornaments look quite staines with algee and other deposits and I was wondering if some sort of peroxide based bleach (like for dentures) could be used to give everything a new look before i start afresh? Has anyone experience with that?

 

[degrassi]

You can use bleach to disinfect a tank. Just make sure to rinse a lot and use 2x the dose of dechlorinator, or just let it air dry if its going to be dry for a while(the chlorine in the bleach will eventually evaporate). Make sure you use pure bleach, not something with soap in it too.

Vinegar works well for cleaning calcium deposits along with a razor blade on the glass. FOr ornaments your best bet is bleach(to kill the algae) and then scrubbing.

Just remember that since you are taking apart your aquarium it will no longer be cycled and you will have to start the process all over again. Read up on fishless cycling, its faster and safe for the fish(no fish will get hurt by the toxins, unlike during a regular cycle with fish). It also takes about 2-3 weeks, unlike regular cycling(with fish) that can take 6weeks+.

 

[Sabine]

Thanks for the advice with the bleach. Excuse my ignorance, but what is meant by "cycling". Is that the establishment of good bacteria when you set out???

 

[degrassi]

Yes, cycling is where you establish the bacteria that make up the nitrogen cycle(ammonia, nitrite, nitrates).

The process of cycling is very dangerous for the fish, as even small quantities of ammonia and nitrites can be lethal. Thats why people usually recommend cycling a tank with cheap throw away fish like danios or feeder goldfish. Because during the cycle most will die, get sick or be permanently damaged.

Its best to fishless cycle. Which means you use household ammonia to replicate the process. You add an amount of ammonia to bring the tank up to 5ppm, then you add enough each day to maintain that 5ppm. Once the tank is about to cycle 5ppm of ammonia in 24hrs, your tank is cycled and you can add all the fish at once.

Fishless cycling is faster, safer, and you can add more fish at the end. Win, win, win

 

[degrassi]

Also, what size tank is it? All goldfish get BIG(8"+) and are huge waste producers. 1 adult goldfish should have 30gals each.

 

[Sabine]

I am not entirely sure about the size but I think it is about 15 gallons (30ltrs?) or so and I had mostly two fish in there. They never grew more than about 10cm, even the one who lived for about two years. The reason they died though was definately some desease as their scales where covered in whitish stuff.
As I have a heater for the tank I was thinking of restarting with tropical fish. Nothing to fancy just something pretty.

 

[bat42072]

sounds like tha had ich

 

[degrassi]

Ich looks like salt sprinkled on their bodies and fins. Common when buying fish from a petstore and not quarantining them first. Ich can also be brought on by bad water conditions, even when no new fish/plants have been introduced.

A 15g is way too small for 2 goldfish. The reason they didn't grow past 10cm after 2 years, was probably because they were stunted from such small living conditions.

It would be best if you switched over to tropical fish as there are many options that work in a 15g. Livebearers(guppies, platies, mollies), Danios(zebra, pearl, leopard), some tetras etc. will all work in a 15g long term and make a nice, pretty, active tank.

 

[Sabine]

I should have known better buying fish from a tank that had been treated for something. The wouldn't sell me the fish the day before i bought them but said I had to wait 24 hours. I should have really gone elsewhere but I wanted the colours they had. That was the first time I had a disaster like that

 

[Hazel-Mom]

When we still had a fish tank, we had some ornamental goldfish. They stayed small, about 10 cm (4 inches), even though they had a 50 gallon tank, and there were only 2 of them. Some goldfish really do stay small.
But, they do produce a lot of waste. They are one of the "dirtiest" kinds of fish ever!

 

[missyscove]

I have a 20 gallon and right now we have 2 black neon tetras, a cory catfish and a serpae tetra.
We had more of each, but they ended up dying off and we don't really want to add more right now because the light load makes the tank really easy to take care of and we don't want to risk adding in new diseases.

We also have about a million tiny snails which we don't know how we got considering we've never bought live plants - only fake plastic ones.